Posted in Workshop Writing on September 05, 2010 by Steve
Since time is linear, why do we wear wristwatches that go round and round? We occupy such a minute portion of space and time, a mere nanosecond of cosmic history. Clearly I believe what I’m wearing on my wrist is woefully inadequate, not even close to measuring up to the task of making the most of our time. I’m thinking spiral, the kind that occurs when you drop a coin in one of those donation contraptions at the supermarket, the ones that send the coin on a journey traveling around and around in a spiral of increasing speed until it drops into the till, time having run out for that nickle. That it remains in space and time, just out of sight, well, that’s another mystery for another writer.
So what we need is a watch that represents the way we experience time. First, we need a starting point for our different wristwatch. That’s easy. The moment we enter space and time, get taken off mothers life support, our birth. Second, and this is the tricky part, one that requires a leap of faith, to borrow some concepts from accounting and tax law. We need to know how long we’ll be staying. As difficult as that may sound, there is an answer. Should we happen to stay on past our actuarially provided life expectancy, we continue on borrowed time, time I might add that will not have to be paid back, a debt that we get to take with us. And what about an earlier exit? Well, haven’t you ever read the fine print on your birth certificate, the boilerplate stuff on the reverse side, about the maker having the right, without prior notice, written or otherwise, to call the loan? That's right folks, the sentient time we spend here on the planet, is subject to that clause, No. 37a, if memory serves me correctly. It has been a while since I last looked.
Ok, so far it works for me. Now what is this wristwatch supposed to look like, how does it work, what is the margin of error, how is it to be made so that it views like one of those supermarket donation contraptions I mentioned earlier. No problem, it’s just some sort of holographic illusion that looks just like the one in the supermarket, you being that silver thing spiraling around and around, clearly occupying a precise point in a larger three dimensional image, one that is our very own; unique and complete. As far as margin of error, please refer to No. 37a. We could even add some sound effects; yes, the sound of traveling through time. I like that. And the best part about it is how the revolutions go forward at an increasingly accelerating clip, just like the real deal.
So what do you say, I’m sure there must be a techie or two out there who could pull this off. I’ll be the first to order a few. What a great gift, perfect for any occasion.
Posted in Workshop Writing on August 07, 2010 by Steve
FROM IN BETWEEN TWO LIVES
NOTE : These were written a few weeks apart, first ‘To my grandchild’ in anticipation of his birth, and then 3 weeks later ‘My Dad left’ when he rapidly succumbed to unexpected pneumonia. I put them together only because my grandson was born on the day of my dad’s funeral. Not sure if they should be integrated into a single piece.
Part I
My Dad left yesterday. I didn’t actually see him leave; it was more like I helped him pack.
And on the following day someone new was scheduled to arrive. Such is the way of the world. I don’t believe souls are involved in some sort of metaphysical relay race, but when death and birth occur so close, it hits me like whiplash. Best I can do now, is to hold on tight to the parts of my life that are blessed with a peaceful inertia. Nothing remains still in the universe.
My Dad seemed content to be still, the last time I saw him, lying in his bed, arms and legs so thin he appeared as an image of an Auschwitz survivor, which of course he was not. And still, very still, except for when he moved the sheet with his bone thin arms, covering precisely only that which he felt needed to be covered. His thighs, but not his ankles. His chest, but not his shoulders. Precise, all his motions were very precise.
The sheets, for some unknown reason, required constant adjustment, which my father executed with exquisite efficiency.
When I arrived, Robin and I, his response to my booming, “Hello Dad” was a broad welcoming smile, followed by an outstretched arm, which grasped my own. He encircled my wrist and slid his hand upwards toward my elbow, and then back down, as if he needed to feel the fingers on my hand to be sure of the body part he was touching.
The effort tired him out and we moved a bit closer to allow for a gentle pressing together as I sat on his bed, each of us knowing this would be the defining moment before he left.
On the floor, the unused cannula made a gentle soothing noise, a white noise. I lifted it up and offered it to my Dad. He brushed it aside, as if it was the last item that had to be packed before he left. The next day he left.
Death is not poetic. It is the end of the recording, the part when the needle lifts off the record, or the tape runs off the spool with a soft flapping sound.
We would all be fortunate to exit life’s stage in such a manner. This was his reward for a lifetime of placing the needs of his children ahead of his own needs, in each and every moment of his life.
Part II
To Belay a Climber: The procedure of securing a climber by the use of a rope; a climber is on belay when the belayer is prepared to lock off the rope connecting the climber and the belayer in the event of a fall, and off belay when the climber has reached a secure place and the second may discontinue the belaying process.
Where it all began doesn’t matter. How it began, well, probably it began with a kiss and a gentle caress. Such was your beginning, my first grandchild. And, in the coming days, weeks, and months, you were kept safe and warm, on belay, by an umbilical cord. The other end, securing your safe journey, was your original belayer, your mother, Marisa. Backing her up, protecting her, keeping her safe, was your dad. That’s the way it was at the beginning. And as you grow, this idea, this physical construct existing in your mind, will continue to keep you safe, while those at the other end of the rope will change over and over, as will the nature of the connection between you and your climbing partners.
Life is like climbing. But in place of focusing intently on the three-square meters that always surround you as you scale up the face of the cliff, in life you must focus on the time and the people that surround you. Aim your compass high, towards the highest part of the mountain you can see. In this world, we are all blessed with an uncanny ability to achieve most of what we are able to conceive for ourselves. I could spend hours of our time detailing all those who have kept me safe every time I shouted out the climbers opening question, ‘on belay?’, and heard the reassuring reply, ‘belay on’, followed by my own expletive, ‘climbing’, and the closing words, “climb on, have fun!’ When climbing, you always need to believe there is a hold. Sometimes you have to take a chance. You might find yourself halfway up the side of a cliff, high above the deck, with no easy retreat, no foreseeable way to move upward. You stand there, tense, probably scared by the uncertainty you face. You try your best to find a way to rest, before you make your move, knowing life won’t let you stand still. Maybe you need to take turns with your hands, holding on first with one hand, then the other, fighting the burning sensation that is building up in your muscles. You know your heart is racing, but you feel nothing, only the danger you face. Maybe you feel for the first time that it’s not your earthly body that matters. Maybe your earthly body is all you’re thinking about. It makes no difference.
‘I’m going for it’, you shout out to your belayer below. You wait for the response: your dad, your friend, your wife, your coworker, your partner, your god. It doesn’t matter who has the other end of the rope, as long as you’ve chosen someone. You don’t have to wait long. “I've got you, go for it’, comes back the reply from your belayer. You make the move around the corner of the rock, taking a step into the unknown. You're not looking up or down; instead, you're fingers are feeling blindly around the corner of the rock, surveying the surface for something secure to grab hold of. Anything is better than nothing, any port in a storm. A tomorrow is all you want. You feel something; you lock in a single finger, then the next. Soon you have a hand-hold, and you step off, climbing up and around the corner. You can see the top now; you know you are closer now. The way forward is in focus is again; clear, if only for a moment. You’re at a good spot now, and you take a well-deserved rest. You are on a ledge, hundreds of days from your birth, hundreds of days from your death. Here, you can rest; here you can think, here you can use your hands as you wish. You wipe the sweat from your face, comb your fingers through your hair, and secure yourself on this new ledge. “Off belay,” you shout out to your belay partner. “Off belay” comes back the acknowledgement. Now it’s your partner’s turn to join you. You arrange your gear and build your anchor. Now it is your turn to be the belayer, and your partner’s turn to climb. “On belay’, you shout out to your partner. ‘Climbing,” comes back the response. ‘Climb on!’
Posted in Workshop Writing on July 16, 2010 by Kate Fraser
I watch my dog Maddie walk gingerly across the back deck, a little wobbly in her rear end and wonder how much longer it will be before I have to start carrying her down the steep steps to the yard. Her age, somewhere between eleven and thirteen, is beginning to show and it hurts my heart.
Our morning constitutional complete, we head into the house to join her “brothers” for breakfast. While the dogs eat, I jump on my computer to check my e-mail and Facebook. A friend has sent me a link to a “special letter” published in the Detroit News. When I read it my stomach twists in knots. Its written by Teresa Lynn Chagrin, an “Animal Care & Control Specialist“ for PETA. The title of the letter “Rescued pit bulls not Family Pets” and it encourages the Livingston County Animal Control to continue to euthanize all pit bull type dogs that come through their doors. Her position is nothing new, for as long as I can remember PETA has sounded the death knell for pit bull type dogs. I know this, yet every time I see it stated in black and white I feel sick inside.
The irony is that PETA has something in common with some of the thugs, dog fighters and abusers they point to when attempting justify their position. They too make money, in the form of public donations, over the backs of the dogs they wish to exterminate. I keep hoping that they will change. That at long last they will look at the dogs and see what I see, learn what I’ve learned, but so far they have not.
I have lived with dogs all my life. Ask me for a story about my childhood growing up in rural Vermont and a dog; Stanley, Annie or Casey, Taffy, Emily, Minnie, Addie or Bromley will most likely be included in the tale. For the shy youngest child of Bob and Mary Fraser, the dogs were playmates, companions, and confidants. Each of our family dogs taught me something about life: loyalty, commitment, love, friendship and loss.
My childhood home, a large white 1793 colonial, sat on a hill which sloped down to the front lawn. A wide patch of lilies and stinging nettles bordered the lawn, and in front of that the quiet country road on which we lived. On the other side of the road stood the banks of the Connecticut River. The front lawn was flat and long with two huge pine trees, one anchoring each end. It was perfect for playing baseball.
I don’t remember who was batting, it may have been my sister Donna or me, with our brother Stephen, the oldest of the three of us pitching. Our Golden Retriever Taffy was with us, chasing down every pop fly just as she always did. All I know for sure is that one of us hit a foul ball over the patch of lilies and nettles, across the road and down the bank to the river. Taffy, our trusty Center fielder did what she’d done a hundred times before, she crossed the road to retrieve the ball. She found it. She was so proud coming back across the road to her children, baseball in her mouth, blond feathery tail held high and wagging. She didn’t notice the car, I don’t think any of us did, until it was right there, going too fast, straight down the middle of the road.
She made it back to us, circled three times and collapsed at our feet. The driver who hit her, a neighbor from further down the road, got out of his car, looked at Taffy as she lay laboring in the grass, shrugged his shoulders and said “Sorry, I’m late for work.” Then he got back into his car and sped away. Later that afternoon, as our entire family stood by her grave and wept, my father buried Taffy in his beloved garden. It was the first time someone I loved had died. I was five years old.
It was Casey, a beagle who came from “the pound,“ who first taught me that it was possible for someone to overcome their past. Casey had been a hunting dog and knew nothing of living in a house. He was destructive and untrained and it’s a testament to my parents commitment to their pets that he didn‘t end up back at the pound within 48 hours of coming home. He was for a time relocated from the house to the barn and after learning some manners, moved back into the house where he took up permanent residence.
Casey was a dog of great spirit and great voice. He never failed to howl for a handout at the dining room table when we had company over for dinner and although the dogs were not allowed on the furniture, he never overcame his desire to sleep in my mother’s favorite antique wing chair. He would worm his way around any obstruction placed in the seat to keep him out and despite the scolding he’d get if caught, he’d curl up in that chair whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Casey was also the best judge of character of any dog we ever had. As a teenager, I was home alone when a man with some antiques to sell appeared at the door and asked if my parents were home. I told him they were not, but he stepped past me into foyer to see for himself. When he lingered a little too long after I’d said “I’ll tell them you stopped by,” it was Casey who firmly, but appropriately let him know that it was time to go.
Life often comes full circle and so it has been with me. I have worked with dogs for the past twelve years as a volunteer, rescuer and shelter professional. I first met a American Pit Bull Terriers at a Massachusetts shelter where I became a volunteer. At the time I knew nothing of the dogs other than what I’d heard on the news, but I had an open heart and an open mind. It turns out that was all that was needed, the dogs did the rest. It was at that shelter that I adopted Isaac, a little ten week old brown and white pup who had been left to die in a dumpster. Now ten years old and getting very gray, it was Isaac who changed our elderly neighbor’s opinion of his kind and it was Isaac who helped a little girl who had been bitten by another type of dog overcome her fears. She would come to the shelter each Sunday with her mother and grandmother and he would wiggle and wag at the sight of her. It took a few visits before she found the courage to pet him, but when she did she was rewarded with a big smile, a wagging tail and a gentle kiss. After awhile they stopped coming, with Isaac’s help the child had overcome her fears.
Since I first walked into that shelter twelve years ago, I’ve work with hundreds of pit bull dogs. The thing that struck me then was the resilience of the dogs I cared for and it is that resilience that amazes me still. With some dogs its their wiggling, wagging eternal optimism, “I’m stuck in this place, but I’m still going to put myself out there and make a new friend” that brings a smile to my face and inspires my admiration. With others it’s their courage to try to overcome. To trust when no human has ever proved to be trustworthy. To bravely put one foot in front of the other and give it one more try. Children share this type of courage, but as we grow into adults it seems to get lost in us. We become worn down, jaded or too invested in our point of view to consider any alternatives.
When we paint every member of a group, human or canine, with the same brush instead of treating them as individuals we do them and ourselves a disservice. If ever there were a group of dogs who proved this point, it’s the group that hailed from Bad Newz Kennels. When Bad Newz Kennels was raided, PETA recommended all of the dogs be euthanized without the benefit of evaluation. What a tragedy it would have been if that had happened. Today, the Bad Newz Kennels Survivors are thriving. The dogs have contributed to society through education, therapy work and by being cherished family companions. To have summarily put them to death would have been a shame and a sin. When we open our minds, watch and learn the dogs will teach us.
And so I wonder, who is the teacher and who is the pupil? The best of us endeavor to socialize our dogs well, to teach them to be confident, happy, well behaved members of our families. For myself, I’ve learned so much more from the dogs I’ve known than I could ever teach them. From shelter dogs; Spice, the very first pit bull to capture my heart and a long time shelter resident taught me that if you keep your spirits up and hang in there good things will come your way. Bubbles and Sweets taught me about overcoming your fears and putting your trust in strangers. Charlie and Alley taught me that sometimes a dog knows who their person is the minute they walk in the room. Scar, Jesse and Jericho that life is full of second chances, when a good one comes your way, TAKE IT. Angel, Annie, Bella and Samson that life isn’t always fair, people will let you down and hearts get broken along the way. Sara Lee that a very smart dog can make you look really brilliant or really silly and that you should think twice before teaching a dog how to open the refrigerator.
I share my home with four companion animals; one cat, Spencer, and three dogs; two American Pit Bull Terriers, Isaac and Maddie and one American Bull dog, Zeus. All are rescues. It is Maddie’s sense of humor that reminds me to lighten up and not take everything so seriously. It is Isaac’s calm, steadfast nature that gives me the strength to keep on keeping on and it is Zeus’s bull dog determination that reminds me not to let my own determination lag when I feel like giving up. They are all teachers of tolerance, forgiveness, patience, devotion. School is in session. We need to pay better attention.
Posted in Workshop Writing on July 04, 2010 by Kate Fraser
On Paradise Avenue
A dog watches
The world pass by
Confined to a dry patch of earth
By a short heavy chain
A dog listens while
Inside people laugh
Glasses clink
Food is served
Life is lived
On Paradise Avenue
A dog licks parched lips
Rests his head on dirty paws
Longing to go inside
And join the family
Posted in Workshop Writing on June 26, 2010 by Kate Fraser
It breaks my heart to think that he died alone. No one there to comfort him, to wipe sweat from his brow. No one to hold his hand, and say "I'm right here with you. You're not alone. You don't need to be afraid, its okay to let go when you're ready."
There was a thirty-six year difference in our ages. He was a proud, extroverted African-American man or as he preferred to say "person of color." An only child, born and raised in Boston, he'd traveled the world, but never learned how to drive. I was an introverted white woman. The youngest of four, born in New Hampshire, raised in Vermont, who had barely traveled outside of New England, yet we understood each other perfectly.
We were co-workers, who along with a group of four or five others became great friends. We'd lunch together, laugh and solve the world's troubles. On occasion our tight knit little group would take in a Sox game, or head to a restaurant in the North End to celebrate life's milestones; birthdays, the holidays, new jobs, retirements. We both loved music and literature and talked on the topics often. "Did you see Miss Labelle on the Grammy's last night?" he'd say knowing I had, "Child, that hair and the outfit."
He was a big man, over six feet and was by far the best dressed man or woman in our office. His skin was a deep, dark mahogany, his salt-n-pepper mustache always neatly trimmed, his clothes well made and perfectly fit. He kept a spare tie in his desk at all times so he could change if he stained the one he was wearing while eating lunch. He loved to shop for jewelry at Tiffany's. His laugh, oh his laugh, it was loud, deep and genuine and one of the most joyful sounds I've ever heard. He was a man of great faith and he worshiped at the same AME church he'd attended with his parents as child. Every Sunday he sat in the exact same place. It was the seat his father had occupied before him.
He kept his life neatly compartmentalized; work friends, church friends, family, friends from his club. He was vigilant in keeping all of these worlds separate. A member of our group, the only other male, was very interested in the club Karl frequented on weekends. This guy was white, straight and very conservative. He was dying to know about this "club" and teased that if he found out where it was he'd to show up there some Saturday. On one occasion when he called the house and Karl's roommate answered, his desire to know got the better of him. He casually asked the name of the club and was rewarded with the information he'd been so anxious to have. A suburbanite, what he didn't realize was the club was the oldest operating gay bar in the city of Boston. It wasn't long after that he dropped the bomb and revealed what he'd learned to Karl. It almost cost him his friendship. He'd crossed a line he shouldn't have, in Karl's world the lines didn't cross, the lives didn't intersect.
I took the T to Brigham and Women's hospital after work. Karl was in the hospital again, but we didn't know what was wrong. When I took the elevator up to his room, I found he had the room to himself. I sat by his side and we talked about this and that. Occasionally, he would start talking nonsense and then a few minutes later make perfect sense again. Right before visiting hours ended, a nurse came in to take more blood, "where did he want her to stick him?" she'd asked. Unable to form an answer, he looked at me like a lost child. "Take it from wherever he appears to be the least sore," I told her and she did. Blood drawn, I kissed him on the cheek and told him "I'll see you tomorrow." When tomorrow came, so did the phone call that Karl had died.
Its been sixteen years and still he crosses my mind. I wish he were here to see the strides made within the gay community; marriage, adoption, no cure yet, but better treatment options for HIV/AIDS, more positive portrayals of gays and lesbians in the media. When Barack Obama was elected President, out of all my African-American friends it was Karl that I thought of first. As I sat listening to Obama's acceptance speech on election night, I cried tears of joy that the day had come, tears of sorrow that my old friend hadn't lived to see it. He would have been so proud.
Its strange what one comes to realize over time. After Karl died, all the worlds he'd strived to keep separate came together. I'd always thought it was a shame that he'd chosen to keep each aspect of his life in a little box, even said so to friends. Then one day I woke up and discovered, I've done the exact same thing. Keep it safe, keep it private, let each box sit on its own little shelf; family, work, work friends, volunteer work and friends, etc. I am intensely private, always have been and I have begun to ask myself why? What is the risk in sharing? What have I lost, what have I gained? What will happen if you let it all go? Can I change? Do I want to? I'm on the fence and its becoming somewhat less comfortable than it used to be.
If one called his house and got the answering machine, one would hear Karl's deep baritone voice politely inform the caller that he was unavailable to take their call and to please leave a message after the tone. After that standard greeting was delivered he would say "Uhuru," then message indicator would beep. Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom. Uhuru, something we all seek. Uhuru, something we must look within ourselves to find. Uhuru, something to think about.
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